Formulators of fabric treatment compositions have long sought means for simultaneously washing and softening fabrics. Among the various approaches suggested are methods employing clay softeners, or amine materials, or both ingredients in combination, such as described in e.g.: German Pat. Nos. 29.64.114, 28.57.16, 24.39.541, 23.34.899 and European Pat. Nos. 0 026 528 and 0 028 432.
Amines have been used in combination with soaps (U.K. Pat. No. 1 514 276) fatty acids (published E.P.A. No. 0 133 804) or phosphate esters (published E.P.A. No. 0 168 889) as through-the-wash softeners.
The formulation of the art through-the-wash softening detergent compositions can, however, be subject to flexibility problems which are often due to incompatibility between certain ingredients (between e.g. peroxyacid bleaching agents and softening agents).
Carboxy-amides have been used as antistatic agents in industrial textile treatment (German Pat. No. 30 43 618) and N-alkyl isostearamides as antistatic agents in laundry application (French Pat. No. 2,531,447). Japanese Pat. No. J5 8144-175-A discloses the industrial treatment of textile by cationic softening agents and ethoxylated fatty acid amides.
Alkoxylated fatty amides are known as surfactants (EP No. 0 000 595) and as viscosity control agents (EP No. 0 112 719).
German patent application No. 19 59 007 discloses the use as softening agent of a monoethanolamide. German patent application No. 33 10 417 discloses the use of fatty acids diethanolamides as antistatic/non-yellowing agents.
None of the above documents discloses the use of the specific amides of the present invention in softening detergent compositions.
It is an object of the present invention to provide detergent compositions capable of providing excellent cleaning, softening, and fabric-care properties.
It is a further object of the invention to provide softening detergent compositions which can be formulated with increased flexibility, in particular in presence of peroxyacid bleaching compounds.
Indeed, it has now been discovered that the use of a narrowly-defined class of amides as softening agents in detergent compositions provides excellent results in both cleaning and softening of fabric, as well as other "fabric care" benefits, possibly in the presence of peroxyacid bleaching agents.